


Stacey

by ShinMeiko



Series: Secondary characters have substance too [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:09:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22123870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinMeiko/pseuds/ShinMeiko
Summary: Stacey's story. How she fell in love with Bram's father and how she evolved from 'the other woman' to 'Bram's stepmom'.
Series: Secondary characters have substance too [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592485
Comments: 8
Kudos: 17





	Stacey

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Life is a series of first times that I can't wait to share with you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18737509) by [ShinMeiko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinMeiko/pseuds/ShinMeiko). 



> This could have technically been in the main fandom as we are going to see some of Bram, but I didn't want to flood the fandom with my divagations...

I guess this is it. I became what I tried so hard never to become.

I grew up in a wealthy family – the kind that always says that ‘they’re comfortable’ – in which boys are given kingly names and are expecting to become doctors, lawyers or CEO, marry a trophy wife, preferably without too many opinions, and get two children – a boy and a girl. Or two boys. No one wants to be the disappointment that can only bring girls into the world. Girls, however, are given girly names – most often than not ending in a ‘y’ – and are taught how to become wives.

It took me a long time to break that pattern. For the longest time, I didn’t even notice it. I was a cheerleader, I was class president, I was a tutor, I volunteered in the synagogue’s charities… I went to college and I studied a combination of literature and humanities. I did not realize then that my parents approved because it was the perfect field of study. It was academic enough to be well regarded but was not preparing me to become a doctor, a lawyer, a CEO, or any other job that could overshadow my potential husband or that I couldn’t get talked into putting aside to ‘focus on the children in their tender years’. I felt free and independent and did not see that I had simply willingly complied to the very 1950’s view of the world, gender, and family of my parents.

College opened my eyes. I had a woman’s study professor that entirely changed my perception of myself and of people. I had to face that the expectations I had for myself came from society and family pressure more than internal desires. I had to admit that although I was the kind of person to say that it didn’t matter who was the provider in a couple, I also found odd when a woman earned more than her partner. I started to do a lot of work on myself to change my expectations of myself and of others around me.

I never went completely the other way either. I don’t think anything is due to women or that we have a greatness specific to our sex. But I also stopped thinking that anything is due to men or that they have a greatness specific to their sex. I do not think that there is anything wrong with the traditional model of family, and I still aspire to that in a way, but I see all of the other options and they all feel like valid choices. Options. That’s what we all need to be exposed to. To repress our judgemental side and find the best life for ourselves.

That was my mindset when I graduated from Stanford. Still not engaged, to my mother’s utter despair.

I traveled for a couple of years, finding work wherever I could to finance my journey. Europe, Asia, South America, the US, and Canada. I wouldn’t take my parents’ money. They would have come with ties. The biggest one being to cut the traveling short. Besides, I valued those experiences so dearly.

After that, I came back to Georgia and I started working at the Savannah College of Art and Design as a teaching assistant while working on my M.A. This is where I met professor Richard Greenfeld. He was working at another college and he came for a conference on the evolution of writing. We shouldn’t have met, really, I just happened to go see some of the talks out of curiosity.

All my life, I had been around strong, powerful, intelligent, captivating men. None of which I felt attracted to. Or at least not for those reasons. But this man was fascinating. The ideas he was putting forward, the points he was making, the way he was expressing them… After the talk, I found a way to go talk to him. Ask questions, discuss some points further, get a deeper glance at this wonderful mind. I also intended to flirt a little.

Which I didn’t. The golden band on his left ring finger was a clear stop sign. Even in the middle of my battle to favor options above the traditional model of family, I had not lost my fundamental values or moral compass.

Yet, here I am, sitting up, naked, in a hotel bed, that man lying next to me, asleep.

He is who I didn’t want for myself. To my family, he is the perfect choice. Right profession, right family, right religion… He makes me want the picture-perfect family that has been sold to me my entire life. I want to marry him and give him children. Not that he asked or tried to change my mind. It’s something in me that changed.

The shift was strong enough to make me do this. It was like… as soon as I accepted that he wasn’t available, our path kept randomly crossing. As soon as I decided that I wasn’t going to do anything, we started socializing through common friends. As soon as I developed feelings, I heard about his marital problems. As soon as I decided not to pursue this, he invited me out… and the spiral just kept going out of control. Until now.

He doesn’t wear his wedding band anymore. Not just with me, I noticed it even before he asked me out. He is looking for an apartment. I know all of that. I use it as excuses. But he is still married, and he could be working things out with his wife instead of booking a hotel room in the middle of the afternoon with a younger, text-book other woman.

Because that’s what I am now, aren’t I? I worked so hard not to be a cliché, and now I am two at the same time. How pathetic.

And they have a son. More than the other woman, am I a home-wrecker? Am I a terrible person?

And still… I cannot regret it. Any of it. He makes me laugh, he makes me confident, he makes me smarter, he makes me giddy, he makes me happy…

I feel his warm hand caressing my back and I lie back next to him.

The way he looks at me, so adoringly, doesn’t help my internal struggle. This is still wrong. But I simply do not have the will to stop.

“I haven’t been this happy in years,” he tells me.

“Why? Because you got a girl to fall in your arms?”

“No. because I got _the_ girl. You and I… we have been fighting this for two years now. You were just about to finish your M.A. when we met. That was the perfect excuse to stay away from you. _She is still a student_. Even if you were older than students because you came back to it later in life… I had deontology to hide behind.”

“Wasn’t your marriage the perfect reason?”

“Stop doing this, Stacey. Gabrielle and I… we loved each other. We were happy. And then we weren’t. We still tried. We would be at the same point even without you. She and I are not you and me. Stop tying the two things together.”

“Yes, but…”

“But nothing. I love you. I told you that yesterday. And my divorce is about to be signed. Gabrielle took a job as an epidemiologist in a hospital in Atlanta. That chapter of my life is about to close.”

“We should have waited. To avoid the overlap.”

“We should have. But I don’t think I could have. I need this. I need you. I need to be happy. I am sorry for the circumstances I am dragging you into, but… aren’t you happy?”

“I am,” I admit.

“Then stay with me. Let’s date properly. See if we are sure, now that it’s allowed. And if we are as sure as we think we are, we’ll find a place together. We’ll be happy, I swear.”

I still don’t think it’s allowed yet. But I want all of that. I don’t care if people will say that it was fast. Or if they think that we have been cheating on his wife the whole time.

Or rather… I do care. But I am ready to face the storm.

Even if we are still burying our heads in the sand. We don’t talk about him jumping from a relationship to the next. We don’t talk about the ten-year gap between us. And we don’t – and haven’t ever – talk about his son. His son who might or might not be moving with his wife. We need to talk about that. It is probably so important for him right now. But I am afraid to open that door just yet.

This is a recipe for disaster. I know that. There is no way this story will end happily – even if I continue to selfishly disregard his wife’s happiness.

I know I am the rebound. The other woman. I will never be the wife. I am compromising my values for something I won’t be able to hold on to.

But I still don’t want to stop or take it back. I wouldn’t even if I could. Because when I balance things out, I am more happy than not.


End file.
